Wasinger running for Congress again - from Virginia

Thursday

Political staffer Rob Wasinger ran unsuccessfully four years ago for a Kansas seat in Congress, and he’s running again for Congress – from the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

When Wasinger sought the 1st District seat in Kansas, he battled carpetbagger charges. This time around, he is emphasizing his longevity in Virginia. Kansas isn’t mentioned in his campaign website biography.

“Rob and his wife Meg have raised their family in Virginia,” the biography begins on www.robwasinger.com.

Wasinger was “born in the Heartland of America and raised on solid values,” it says, without mentioning his parents were from Hays, which he did when he ran here in 2010.

“From an early age, Rob expressed a desire to make a difference for our nation. He worked hard and earned a scholarship to one of our nation’s most prestigious universities, then put down roots in the Old Dominion,” it states.

The website notes Wasinger served as chief of staff for then-U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback. There is no reference to the state Brownback represented on Capitol Hill or that he is now Kansas governor.

But Wasinger’s Kansas roots are not invisible. His new campaign’s treasurer is family relative Marilyn Wasinger, Hays, who filled that role in the Kansas campaign. The bank listed in a campaign document filed with the Federal Election Commission is Bank of America, Hays. The document was faxed to the FEC from a Hays business office.

Kansas voter

As of Thursday, Wasinger was still a registered voter in Kansas – and a registered voter in Virginia.

The News was not able to verify with authorities in Virginia if Wasinger was a registered voter in Fairfax County, Va., where he lives and is seeking the 10th Congressional District seat. State law prevents such disclosure by long distance, although records can be inspected in the office in Virginia, according to Fairfax County General Registrar Cameron Quinn.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s office confirmed, though, Wasinger is registered in both Chase County in Kansas and in Virginia.

Wasinger registered in Ellis County in 2008, according to Reno County’s Deputy Election Officer Jenna Fager, and shifted his registration to Chase County in 2009. He lost the August 2010 GOP primary to Tim Huelskamp. The last ballot Wasinger cast in Kansas was in April 2011.

In 2012, he registered in Virginia, according to Kay Curtis, director of public affairs for Kobach.

The likely scenario for why Wasinger is a registered voter in two states, Curtis said in an email, is one of three things:

When Wasinger registered in Virginia, he failed to include his previous address in Kansas on his application form, or the local Virginia registrar failed to send a cancellation notice to Chase County, or the Chase County clerk failed to process the cancellation notice.

The Chase County clerk “should now send him a confirmation notice,” Curtis said, in keeping with national and Kansas voter registration laws.

If Wasinger does not respond to the confirmation notice, he will be carried on Kansas voter registration rolls as an inactive voter until two federal general elections have passed, Curtis said.

Reno County’s Fager said Kansas was a pioneer in the interstate data cross-check system to help keep voter registration records up to date, but only about half the states participate.

Virginia started participating in the program in 2013, and it watches for this acitivity, said Rose Mansfield, with the State Board of Elections in Virginia.

If someone had homes in different places, they would receive a card to verify their voter registration address, she said. If the card wasn’t returned, a flag would be attached to the registration records, Mansfield said.

“Over the years, the system would catch up,” Mansfield said.

The News was unable to reach Wasinger.

10th District/1st District

Virginia’s 10th District and Kansas’ 1st District are both represented by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. Beyond that, comparisons are limited.

According to data on ballotpedia.org, over 51 percent of residents in the northern Virginia district are college graduates. Median household income for the congressional district is $109,505. The district encompasses all or part of four counties.

The Big First in Kansas, represented by Congressman Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler/Hutchinson, covers 69 counties and more than half of the state. Twenty-three percent of the residents are college graduates and median household income is $43,340.

Where the districts are similar are in debates between conservative and moderate Republicans. Wasinger is running in a crowded GOP field and asserting he is a conservative voice. He favors simplifying the tax code, repealing Obamacare, securing the country’s borders, defending gun rights, and protecting life.

Rep. Frank Wolf has represented the 10th District for 34 years and is retiring. On April 26, a nominee from the six-candidate Republican field will be chosen. The general election is in November.

Growing clan

“The people of Kansas are worth fighting for,” Wasinger wrote when he was pursuing office here.

“I believe no man is ‘self-made.’ We are all products of our upbringing. I am a product of the hard work of others as well as of the great state that I have always been proud to call home,” he declared.

During that campaign, his opponents pointed out that many donations to the Harvard University graduate came from the East Coast. The Wasinger family kept its Virginia home when they were in Kansas, and now that they are back in Virginia, they still own the $90,800 limestone home in Cottonwood Falls.

The family has expanded since the Kansas campaign.

Rob and Meg Wasinger had nine children in 2009 when he announced plans to run in Kansas. The family has added a baby boy and a baby girl since then, bringing the count to 11 children.

Meg Wasinger, involved in real estate before the move to Kansas, “runs a small business in Virginia, “ according to the campaign website.

After the defeat in Kansas, Wasinger went on to become chief of staff for a tea party Republican from Michigan, Rep. Kerry Bentivolio. Wasinger resigned that post before entering this new race.

“Evidently they moved back to Virginia,” said Colleen Scroggin, a Manhattan-area Wasinger supporter, when she first heard Thursday about Wasinger’s new campaign.

Polly Gantenbein, Beloit, was a Wasinger booster who stayed in touch after the campaign.

Gantenbein was the north-central Kansas grassroots organizer for Wasinger, and she looks back on that work – that included appearing in a commercial – as “the best experience of my life.”

Gantenbein admires the Wasinger family, she said, and the change in political venues does not diminish that respect.

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